It is often desirable to search large databases of compressed video for objects of interest. Such instances arise, for example, when authorities issue an AMBER ALERT, which apprises the public that a child under the age of seventeen has been abducted. An AMBER ALERT generally includes a description of a suspected captor's vehicle. Such a description may be used to search databases of traffic video content for the object of interest, in this case, a vehicle.
Prior art techniques for searching large video data databases include decompressing whole video sequences and performing the search within the decompressed video. However, this typically requires a significant amount of computational resources and time.